


Slip-up

by PsiFie



Category: Mutafukaz | MFKZ (2017)
Genre: Cuddling, Tea, Trauma, dudes in denial, falling off of roofs, help! my roommate is half evil alien, op tentacle arms, spooky monster time
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-01
Updated: 2020-11-01
Packaged: 2021-03-08 17:47:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,349
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27330724
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PsiFie/pseuds/PsiFie
Summary: After Vinz nearly slips off the side of the apartment complex, Angelino’s got a problem. Life’s difficult when your fairly-lethal tentacle arms don’t have an off switch.Inspired by Aftermath
Comments: 4
Kudos: 24





	Slip-up

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Aftermath](https://archiveofourown.org/works/18292736) by [Caori](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Caori/pseuds/Caori). 



“MOVIE’S OVER YOU CAN COME BACK NOW!!!!”

Vinz startles at the sound of Lino’s voice, and his hand slips on the rough stone of the edge of the building he was dangling his legs off of. His heart jumps in his chest as he loses balance. Grasping at nothing, he topples over the side, and squeezes his eyes shut at the rapidly approaching ground.

And then, all at once Vinz has the air knocked out of him. He wheezes, once, twice, eyes shut tight. There’s a pressure around his midsection, that’s not quite painful, but is certainly uncomfortable. Is he dying? 

Vinz doesn’t know what freaks him out about this more. The sight of nothing but air beneath his feet, or the pressure of freaky undulating tentacle arms wrapped around him. Still, he could be dead. 

Could still die. _Shit,_ he ain’t safe! “LINO!” Vinz calls up to his friend, forcing out a slight cough. “Little help down here, or are you just gonna leave a guy hangin’?” 

Angelino’s just staring at him, eyes wide, like he doesn’t know what he’s looking at. Hell, he looks more afraid then Vinz does. “U-uh, hold on.” The goopy tentacle shit flexes, and then starts to slowly retract. Within a tense few seconds, Vinz is back on the roof like nothing ever happened, arms quivering. 

Picking up his head, he stares at his friend. Lino’s shoulders are trembling. “I-I don’t—I can’t make them go back, dude.” His eyes are angled towards the cold concrete of the roof. “Fuck! Go back!” Angelino raises his voice and shakes his arms, but the just flop about, totally boneless. “I dunno what to do man! Look at em’!! Shit’s freaky!” Great, he’s starting to panic. 

“Well—they’re gonna _have_ to go back cus’ you have work tomorrow. _Shit_.” Vinz sighs, and pinches at the bridge of where his nose would be.“I have to go back to work tomorrow!!!” Lino looks up at him, guilty and helpless. He’s got to somehow deescalate this shit. “Alright, alright, I know what to do. First let’s get off this stupid roof.”

Vinz has to hold the roof door open for Angelino, and nearly closes the door on the tentacles trailing out behind his buddy. Angelino ends up reaching to the door to their apartment first, fumbling with the key to open it. Vinz watches for a minute as Angelino jostles the key in there, but can’t seem to get a grip on it. In frustration, he tries turning the doorknob and tugging like he normaly does and...

Angelino ends up taking the whole door off the hinges. 

Between the duct tape covering up bullet holes and the new splinters around the dangling hinges, the door’s definitely seen better days. Angelino drops it like it’s on fire, holding his clumsy stupidly strong terrifying tentacle arms near his body. Vinz just scrambles up to him, picking up the door and ushering the embarrassed hybrid inside, setting it so it at least leans against the doorframe.

“It’s fine! It’s open now, and it’s not like we have any shit to steal. Let’s just, go.” Vinz picks up the door as Lino ambles in and hops up on the kitchen counter, kick his feet as he sits there. He stares at his arms as they hang over the cupboards and lay on the floor, looking like a depressed puppy. Why’s he have to be so _pathetic,_ oh my god. “It’s alright. Let’s calm down, get some fuckin’... uh....” Vinz opens up the cupboard and pushes aside the empty boxes of cereal they haven’t bothered to throw out yet, looking for something. There’s just one spare packet of green tea left in there from the last time Vinz believed in the healing properties of leaf water and splurged on a box.

“Alright! Let’s get you some of this stuff.” Setting their cleanest pan on the stove, Vinz starts to bring the water to the boil. He opens his mouth at one point to bring up the... situation, but it seems like Angelino doesn’t want to talk about it. That’s fine. They can not talk. They don’t talk to each other all the time. It’s just chillin.

The tea’s ready pretty quick, and the skeleton sets it on the table next to his friend. “Don’t drink it yet. Wait for it to cool down. Then pass the pack over here, it’s the last one and I want some of myself.” Vinz had found you can get a surprising amount of uses out of a package of tea, and the roaches that inundate their shit apartment don’t seem to want it. Healing properties were probably bs, though. The light burns on his hands from the time he grabbed the wrong piece of a pan at the taco place healed just as slow as they did the three previous times he burned himself working there. 

Shit. Angelino’s not responding. 

“...uh. So.” Vinz clears his throat. “How’d that movie end?”

Angelino finally picks up his head and blinks slowly at him. “What movie?” Vinz scoffs. 

“The weird canny horror shit you were watching, the one with all the creepy bugs.” Vinz shivers. “Did the creepy chick eat everybody or...?” Confusion cross Angelino’s face quickly before he shakes his head. 

“Aw, no. The main girl like, seduced her, it was fuckin’ weird. And then they turned into a swarm of moths. I think they’re married now?”

Vinz shudders at the thought of that, he’s had his fill with swarms of insects living here. “Weird fuckin’ artsy shit, can’t believe you even found that trash on our cable.” He scoffs. 

“...yeah.” Angelino kicks his legs more, and carefully wraps one of the tentacles around the little handle, dwarfing the cup. Grimacing, he actually manages to sip some down, moving his strangle limbs slowly. He scrunches up his nose at the flavor. “What is this shit?”

“S’ supposed good for you? I dunno. Drink it. Relax.” Vinz drinks some of his own—it tastes fine. Could use a little sugar, but they used the last of it up a few days ago. After the month’s rent, they’ll probably have enough for more.

The room is weirdly quiet, and Angelino just blinks at the ground again. He looks real tired—he usually does, but still. Vinz clears his throat again. “Think... maybe you could try to get some sleep? Don’t think the tentacles are going anywhere. Sleeping fixed this shit, uh, last time. Kinda.” Angelino frowns, but nods wordlessly. It takes him a second, but he hops off the countertop and ambling over to his chair. He manages to curl up on it with little difficulty, tearing his blanket slightly as he pulls it up over himself. With his tentacle arms hidden underneath it, he almost looks normal. Angelino must’ve been exhausted as he passes out fast, with the living room lights still on.

The skeleton swirls his own tea, downing the last of it with a bitter gulp with a grimace. This stuff better resolve itself, and hopefully soon. With one last sigh, Vinz turns off all the lights in the apartment, checks the door, and curls up on his own chair. He finds himself staring at Angelino for a second or two before yawning, and shutting his own eyes.  
————————————  
There are mirrors in both directions. 

His stomach turns and when takes a step back, all the warped reflects of him do too. They show different forms of him—wavering, wobbling, like insidious dark liquid. The one closest to him stares back at him with tiny, pinprick-white eyes, and he stares back, paralyzed. Staring in those eyes, there’s nothing like him in there, nothing he knows. It sends shivers down his spine. 

These monsters reflect him. Is that what he looks like? Is all he is? 

It can’t be true. It can’t. Angelino feels so intensely awful he could kill but he doesn’t want to hurt nobody. What even is he. The absolute contradiction that is his existence is all at once overwhelming and suffocating, and he finds himself gasping for breath, clutching at his chest. Half some psychotic invader and half a dude so completely average that the only shit he’s reliable with is how quick he can lose a job. And yet somehow, he’s cut out enough of a niche for himself pinned between the weak walls of this bullethole-riddled apartment complex that he chocking out a living, but for how much longer? The problem’s eliminated for as long as he pretends to forget it, but one slip-up and it all comes hurtling back. 

Slip-up? But what if he hadn’t grabbed Vinz, that’d be worse. But he doesn’t need his powers, so many people around here live without em’ and they’re fine. Well, mostly fine. Oh fuck they aren’t fine who’s he kidding, everyone here lives with the constant fear that they’ll just get unlucky enough to have too many bad days in a row and—and—

It’s fine. It’s FINE as long as things go back to how they were before the crash, before they were on the run. Things are almost the same, he can look over the damage to their apartment and how men in suits make Vinz shake and the fact that sometimes, and pretend they never learned all that weird shit about the luchadors. They’ll get jobs and keep working and it won’t be good but it’ll be normal. 

Raising his arms above his head, Lino sneaks a peak in his reflection. A cowering figure with an uncertain expression stares back.

This is better. This he can work with.  
————————————

Vinz wakes up a few hours later with his tongue feeling tacky and his eyelids heavy. Fuck. Groaning, he sits up in his couch and stretches, his spine cracking uncomfortably. Man, maybe they can afford to dredge up a moldy mattress somewhere and toss it on the floor. He yawns. Maybe?

Midnight awakenings like this aren’t totally unusual for him. Abandoning the warmth of his spot, Vinz stumbles into the kitchen, picking the cleanest glass out of the sink rinsing it before filling it with water. He takes a sip, before his eyes widen with surprise. Hey, Angelino’s up too—standing a few feet away, facing out the window. 

The light from the streetlight silhouettes his roommate in a weird way, creating a hazy orange halo around him. He shuffles, and slowly turns to face Vinz. 

Oh shit. Oh _shit._ That’s not his friend, that’s...

Small, pointed ears prick up out Angelino’s head, twitching slightly. One of the thick, curling arms picks up off the ground like it’s mass means nothing, and flicks like ink in water as it stretches out towards a frozen Vinz. 

Vinz scrambles into motion searching for something to grab, something to use as a weapon against the thing. He’s not gonna let the thing almost kill him again, he’s not. He knows Angelino doesn’t want that, that Angelino’s already distraught over that wild shit his alien half put him through. Angelino’s... he’s innocent, in a way. Gotta be protected, and he’d feel horrible if Vinz die, so—

The skull-head’s grip tightens around the frying pan he grabbed out the sink as he shivers. He’s not gonna let this thing kill him!

“...Viiinnnnz.....” The thing’s breath is weirdly slow and even as it stumbles towards the skull-head. Vinz backs up, muscles tense and ready for the strike he knows his coming. These freaks, they always hit deadly and fast, slicing through clothes and flesh like it‘s nothing. But there’s—there’s gotta be _some_ time to react. Then should he make a break for the door? No, the thing’s way faster then him, too.

Fuck it’s getting closer. Vinz steps back and waves the pan to deter it, but it ambles forward, unbothered. Why’s it even moving so slow? Is there something wrong with it? Suddenly, Vinz’s back bumps something and oh fuck that’s the wall he’s cornered. Vinz pulls the pan to his chest as the thing totally invades the shit out of his personal space, staring up into those empty, empty eyes. It’s like it’s not even thinking, just moving. Just...just—

The pan clangs to the floor. Aw, shit. Of course he can’t hit the bastard. Why didn’t he just run. He’s too much of a coward for this shit. The arms touch his shoulders, and he flinches back from the contact, and screws his eyes shut and hopes at least it kills him fast. That’s always how he wanted to die, no drawn-out shit. Strong, rubbery arms wrap around him, heavy and restricting. And Jesus fuck all he can think is those stupid arms could pop his head off like those dandelions they used to decapitate in the park when they were kids and—

The moment never comes. The arms just... squish him, uncomfortable tightly. The thing mumbles his name again and it’s really just flopped up against his side, leaning on him like it has no bones. Which it might not? Fuck, does weird-alien-tentacle-cat Lino have bones? Lino has bones. Both their skinny ribs are stickin’ out all the time. But this thing is like a bag of fucking slime. A slightly warm bag of slime. 

It continues to just... lean against him, now resting it’s head against his bony shoulder. The ears twitch slightly, and it continues mumbling something completely incomprehensible under it’s breath. Vinz goes pretty quickly from being concerned for his life to the sudden realization that _wow, it’s not snapping my neck,_ and _wow, this is really, really awkward._ It squeezes the air out of him for a second with a tight hug, before it’s arms loosen up again.

Actually, the thing isn’t that heavy, even in partial-murder-alien form. His arms might be big and squishy and weird, but even though he _knows_ they’ve got unreal force behind em, they’re kinda lightweight. Very, very slowly, Vinz raises up his arms, and sticks them behind the thing’s back. 

The tentacles unwind like limp spaghetti, and it’s head lols listlessly. It mumbles his name under it’s breath again, and he shakes it a little. Fuck, what’s wrong with it? Is it... just sleepy? He leans forward, squinting at it, and it stares at the floor, where a cockroach skitters buy. 

_Fucking off, little prying bug,_ Vinz grumbled, even when in his own head, this is a _private moment._ The lad’s gone murder alien form, it’s fuckin uhh... serious. Serious? This was serious, he was deathly afraid of this thing like ago minutes ago. Because it could kill him! Almost killed him that one time. Though, right now it seems to have the murderous tendencies of a slice of tofu, and the physical stability of one too. 

_Why does he have to do EVERYTHING in this house,_ Vinz gripes, as a tentacle latches stickily around his cranium, and the skeleton starts dragging his friend over to the couch. NOBODY does the dishes, NOBODY picks up the floor, all Lino every does is FEED ROACHES, BREAK DOORS, and _okay_ they do split the rent. Flipping his friend onto the couch, Vinz lifts the tentacles out of the warm flames on his head, he places the spaghetti arms carefully across Lino’s chest. 

For a second, he stares at the thing. With it’s eyes are closed, and it’s beginning to look at lot more like Lino. Alright, since that’s handled, he can finally take his well-earned nap. With a long yawn, Vinz stumbles back to his chair when all of a sudden something punches him around the rips, dragging him backwards. 

Well, now the thing’s just… holding him. Holding him, like he’s a big teddy bear and not a slightly pissed off skeleton man. This is just... great. GREAT. High lord of the tentacle monsters demands cuddles, just his ROTTEN LUCK. Fuck, he never did finish that glass of water. Oh well. At least the thing is warm. And kind of soft. Damn, he’s starting to feel tired. As he tries to ignore Lino’s drool on the back of his head, Vinz thinks.

Man, the alien’s all peaceful now. Fucking weird. Did this mean the thing and Angelino like, came to terms with each other?  
No... that’s not it. 

Probably, the thing is just Angelino. And Angelino wouldn’t hurt him, just as he can’t hurt Angelino. Finally coming to this conclusion, Vinz lets out a breath he didn’t know he was holding in. 

Is he gonna tell Angelino about this shit in the morning? Well, depends if he remembers, probably. On one hand, Angelino would flip shit about losing control like this, but on the other, it’s not like he hurt anybody. It’s fine, really.

The big stupid tentacle arms are kinda snug, really. Vinz finds his eyelids drooping, then...  
—————————  
Beep, beep, beep, beep. 

Angelino wakes up slowly, as he usually does, roused by the shrill chirp of the their digital alarm clock. Yawning, the hybrid blinks sleep out of his eyes as the world comes into focus around him. There’s the tv, the window with bright white sunshine beamin’ right through like it normally does. His blanket’s on the floor for some reason, with a tear through the middle—not that it’s much more broken up then the rest of their house, nothing a needle, a thread, and some time can’t fix. His eyes lazily follow the blanket back to the chair, looking down. There’s his arms—looking normal, thank god. But—

“Uh. Vinz?” How the hell did he get there?

The skeleton’s eyes flash open all at once and pushes off Angelino’s chest to do a tactical barrel roll right off the sofa and into a crouch on the floor. “Shit—fuck—WHAT TIME IS IT?” He looks over at the alarm clock before his friend even has to say a thing—“FUCK!! I GOTTA GO!!”

“Uh...” Angelino watches as Vinz scurries around the room, picking up his work clothes and wriggling into them. He holds up his arms to show them off. “No tentacle arms today. S’... pretty good...?”

“Right, yeah.” Vinz is grabbing change for the bus and a packet of applesauce from the cupboard. Only then does he finally stop for a second to glance at Angelino, startling. “That’s... great! That’s great actually.” He snatches the keys off the counter. “Fuck yeah.” 

“What... what do I do now?” Angelino asks. Vinz rolls his eyes. “Is this... alright?”

“Just—go to fucking work! You don’t want to get fired again.” Vinz is already putting on a shirt, pragmatic as he always is. “Pick up new hinges for the door at the hardware store near your workplace. We’ll talk all that other shit in the afternoon. I’ve got burgers to flip. Don’t freak out at work.” And like that, he’s grabbed his hat, covered up his inexplicable flaming head and scrambled out. Lino blinks in confusion, before getting up and opening the mostly covered-up window to look out. On the street, he sees Vinz energetically flag down to the bus and scamper on just before it pulls away. 

And then he sees his hand, resting on the windowsill. 

Normal, as it ever was. Five human fingers, and a slightly squishy palm. Like it never shifted form into a terrifyingly powerful weird-ass monster tentacle thing with wack murder instincts. Bringing it closer to his face, Angelino examines it, turning it around. Hell, even his fingernails look fine, still shoddily cut as they were a couple days ago with their pair of safety scissors. 

Neither him nor Vinz were ever normal by any means. But he didn’t used to be a monster. Or did he? Did things change him on the inside, or is this how he’s ever been? 

Angelino picks his head up and looks at the time. “Shit.” He’s gonna miss his own bus if he doesn’t get down there! For a second, Angelino remembers crawling along the walls like a roach to toss himself down to the street back when the cops bust down the door. Could he....?

...Fuck that. He’s taking the stairs!

**Author's Note:**

> heavily inspired by the fic Aftermath, which is probably like the single best thing to happen to this fandom. I’ve read that work like, a dozen times, it’s so good. MFKZ is... really edgy, but I really enjoyed the movie, and wanted to see more done with these two best friends! Thinking about the scene in Aftermarh where Lino spooks Vinz while Vinz is chilling on the edge of the apartment complex, I kinda wanted to do a what-if while also exploring the whole Evil Alien Thing about that. Yeah, writing fanfiction about fanfiction, so sue me.


End file.
